Research Associates

Sasan Aghlani is currently completing his PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. His thesis explores expediency and pragmatism in different Islamic traditions, particularly in the context of the laws of warfare, and the relevance of these traditions in guiding Iran’s policies towards nuclear weapons today. His research interests include political thought, theology, and philosophy within Shīʿah Islam, as well as international security and international relations. He is also a researcher at Chatham House in the International Security Department. He has been a Research Associate of the Shīʿah Institute since June 2015.

Emann Allebbanis currently completing her PhD in the Department of Philosophy at McGill University, Montreal, specialising in the history of philosophy and theology in Islam. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in Syria to study classical Arabic and Islamic philosophy. She received her BA in Liberal Studies and Philosophy from the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and is currently a Visiting Student Researcher in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She has been a Research Associate of the Shīʿah Institute since September 2015.

Yasmin Amin is currently a PhD student at the Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies, Exeter University, researching the topic of humour in both Sunni and Shīʿah ḥadīth corpora. She obtained a Post Graduate Diploma in Islamic Studies in 2009 and an MA in Islamic Studies in 2011, researching the narrations of Umm Salamah in both Sunni and Shīʿah ḥadīth corpora. She has been a Research Associate of the Shīʿah Institute since September 2016.

Chand Basha M is currently completing his PhD in the Department of English Literature at the English and Foreign Languages University (EFL), Hyderabad, India. His ongoing research focuses on narrative historiography, and the myriad uses of autobiography in literary and oral narratives. He has presented his research papers at various international conferences and has contributed articles to volumes including Tales from His Father’s Suitcase: A Collection of Essays on Orhan Pamuk (Stuttgart, 2016) and Moharram Among the Shiʿah of South Asia: Vernacularisation or Globalization? (Berlin). He has been a Research Associate of the Shīʿah Institute since September 2016.

Hassan Jamal Beloushi is currently completing his PhD at the University of Exeter, specialising in contemporary Shīʿī jurisprudence. His general research interests lie in the fields of the philosophy of ethics and current concepts in theology. He has lectured on Islamic jurisprudence, the Qurʾānic sciences, and Arabic in the Middle East, and published papers in Arabic academic journals. His forthcoming book is entitled Philosophy of Ethics in Medieval Shīʿī Thought. He has been a Research Associate of the Shīʿah Institute since October 2012.

Mohammad Amir Hasan Khan is currently reading for a PhD in South Asian History at the University of Cambridge on the subject of ‘The Evolution of Muslim Politics and Ideologies in Independent India, 1947–1970s’. He has also worked on modern South Asia and the debates in India’s Constituent Assembly regarding safeguards for Muslims. He has been a Research Associate of the Shīʿah Institute since December 2015.

Rabia Latif Khan is PhD student in South Asian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where she also completed her LLM in Human Rights, Conflict & Justice, examining transitional justice in Afghanistan for her thesis. Her current doctoral research focuses on diasporic identity among Hazaras (a minority Shīʿah community from Afghanistan), in London and the Midlands, as well as how social networks of the community impact ethnic consciousness and ethnic solidarity. Rabia has been a Research Associate of the Shīʿah Institute since November 2017.

Vinay Khetia is currently completing his PhD in the department of Religious Studies at McMaster University, Ontario, on the intellectual history of Shīʿah Islam, with a particular focus on Shīʿī liturgy. He has previously guest lectured at Harvard University and has contributed articles on the Qurʾān and Shīʿī Law to academic publications including Al-Bayan: Journal of Qur’an and Hadith Studies. He has been a Research Associate of the Shīʿah Institute since November 2015.

Ali Rida Rizek is currently completing his PhD at the Seminar für Arabistik und Islamwissenschaft at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. His thesis, entitled ‘Early Imāmī Legal Thought and its Perception among Later Scholars: The Case of Ibn Abī ʿAqīl and Ibn al-Junayd’, examines the early stages of Imāmī fiqh and its impact on later developments. His research focuses on theological, legal, social, and political aspects of Imāmī thinking in its formative period. His Masters thesis at the American University of Beirut dealt with the topic of ‘Lawfulness of Working for the Unjust Ruler’, within Imāmī Islamic law. He has been a Research Associate of the Shīʿah Institute since December 2015.

Fatima Siwaju is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University. She earned her BA(Hons) in Modern and Medieval Languages and an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge, before going on to study an MA in Religion at Syracuse University. Fatima’s research engages with the intersections of religion, race and identity, particularly as they relate to Afro-descendant Muslim communities in the Americas. Her theoretical interests include the anthropology of religion, Caribbean intellectual traditions, modern Islamic thought, and postcolonial and diaspora studies. She has been a Research Associate of the Shīʿah Institute since January 2017.

George Warner is currently completing his PhD thesis on early Shīʿah ḥadīth literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. His research is an investigation of alternative approaches to ḥadīth material. He has written and presented papers on various subjects including hagiography, authorial agency in ḥadīth literature, and early views regarding the ghaybah of the twelfth Imām. He has been a Research Associate of the Shīʿah Institute since October 2012.

Stefan Willimason Fa is PhD candidate in the department of Social Anthropology at University College London. His research interests focus on the role of sound in Islamic ritual and religious expression, particularly in Anatolia, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. His PhD research focuses on genres of religious recitation and mourning in the Azeri Shīʾah community in North-eastern Turkey for which he has recently completed a year of fieldwork in the city of Kars. Stefan Williamson Fa has been a Fellow of the Shīʿah Institute since September 2016.